What HMDA data tells you about a mortgage lender, and what it does not
Who reports Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data, what the figures on each profile mean, and why an approval share is not your odds of approval.
Every year, thousands of banks, credit unions and mortgage companies report details of the mortgage applications they received under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) publish the data, and anyone can explore it in the HMDA Data Browser. This site turns each lender's own filing into a plain profile. Here is what those figures can and cannot tell you.
Who reports HMDA data
HMDA is implemented by the CFPB's Regulation C. A lender has to report if it meets the coverage tests in 12 CFR 1003.2. In short:
- Banks, savings associations and credit unions report if, among other tests, they are above an annual asset threshold, have an office in a metropolitan area, and originated at least 25 closed-end mortgage loans in each of the two preceding years (or at least 200 open-end lines of credit).
- Non-bank mortgage companies report if they have an office in a metropolitan area and meet the same 25-loan or 200-line test.
So small rural banks and credit unions, and lenders with very low volume, may not appear at all. Their absence here says nothing about them. Smaller depository institutions (fewer than 500 closed-end loans in each of the two preceding years) are also partially exempt from reporting some data fields (12 CFR 1003.3(d)), though they still report the core counts used on this site.
When the data appear
Lenders must submit each year's data by March 1 of the following year (12 CFR 1003.5), and the public data follow later that year. HMDA is therefore always a look back: the figures on this site describe a full calendar year that has already ended, shown on every profile. A lender's business can change a lot in a year, especially as interest rates move.
What each figure on a profile means
- Loans originated: mortgage loans the lender actually made that year, of every purpose, with their total dollar amount. This is the clearest measure of how active a lender is.
- Average loan originated: total dollars divided by the number of loans. It reflects the lender's markets and products (high-cost areas and jumbo lending push it up; home improvement loans pull it down), not what it would lend you.
- Applications received: applications that ended in a loan, an approval the applicant did not take, a denial, a withdrawal or a file closed as incomplete.
- Share of decided applications approved: approved applications (including approvals the applicant did not accept) divided by applications that were approved or denied. We show it only when a lender decided at least 30 applications.
- Loan purposes and loan types: the mix of home purchase, refinancing, cash-out refinancing and home improvement loans, and of conventional, FHA, VA and USDA loans, among the loans it made.
- Largest states: each state's share of the lender's HMDA records, from the Data Browser's state-by-state filer lists.
Why an approval share is not your odds
A lender's approval share depends heavily on who applies to it. A credit union that mostly lends to existing members, a lender that pre-screens applicants before they formally apply, and a lender that specializes in borrowers with thin credit files will show very different shares for reasons that have nothing to do with how it would treat your application. Product mix matters too: refinance and home improvement applications are decided differently from purchase loans. Use the share as background, not as a prediction, and never as a reason to skip comparing offers.
What HMDA does not tell you
- Today's rates and fees. HMDA data are historical. The only way to compare prices is to get Loan Estimates from several lenders on the same day; see our Loan Estimate guide.
- Service quality. Closing speed, communication and how a lender handles problems are not in the data.
- Licensing. HMDA reporting is not a license. Check a lender and its loan officer on NMLS Consumer Access; see our NMLS guide.
- Where a lender is approved to lend today. The state shares show where it reported activity last year, not every state it is licensed in now.
Size is not quality
We order lenders by the number of loans they made, simply because it is a neutral, factual measure. A large lender is not necessarily better for you than a small one. Very large lenders often have streamlined online applications and offer many loan programs; small banks and credit unions may know local properties well, keep loans in their own portfolio and offer more personal service. A lender that made 40 loans last year may be exactly the right choice for an unusual property in its own county. Use volume to understand a lender, not to judge it.
What we leave out on purpose
The public HMDA data include applicant demographics, and researchers and regulators use them to study lending patterns across the whole market. We do not show demographic breakdowns for named lenders. Differences between groups at a single lender can reflect many factors that the public data do not capture, and a bare number on a profile can mislead in either direction. If you want to study the full data, the Data Browser and the CFPB's HMDA pages are the source.
How to use this site
Use the profiles to build a shortlist: lenders active in your state, that make the kind of loan you need (purchase or refinance, conventional or FHA, VA or USDA), and a mix of bank, credit union and non-bank lenders. Then check each one on NMLS and ask each for a Loan Estimate. We are not a lender or a broker, we do not take applications, and we do not rank lenders; the order on our pages is simply by number of loans made.
General information only, current as of the date above. The information on Mortgage Lender Data is not financial or legal advice and is not an offer of credit. We are not a lender, mortgage broker or loan originator; we take no applications, pass on no borrower information and recommend no lender. Lending figures come from each lender's HMDA filing for the year shown and describe past lending, not the rate, terms or decision you will get. Compare Loan Estimates from several lenders before you choose. Rules and programs change; check the official sources linked in this guide.